Friday, 30 January 2015

I've Got The Power

Today we’re revisiting the career of one of the perpetrators
of one of the earliest posts on this blog, actor Tony Randall.

Way back in September 2007 I featured The Odd Couple
Sing, the dismal tie-in from the two stars
of the TV series The Odd Couple,
Jack Klugman and Tony Randall. The Odd Couple Sing is a stunningly wrongheaded album, featuring some of
the worst performances I've ever come across. Released in 1973, the mismatched
pair must have blinded by the huge piles of money on offer – or simply unable
to contain their own egos - when they agreed to record this embarrassingly
awful collection.

Flash forward six years and Randall was at it again, only
this time replacing TV’s Quincy ME with actress Lynn Redgrave.

The Power is You is
an utterly bizarre musical project, some sort of self-help album consisting of
catchy Broadway-style show tunes about the power of human potential
interspersed with preachy narration by the record's celebrity hosts.

Issued by Clarus Music in 1979, The Power is You was written by lyricist Rosemary Caggiano and
composer Bernie Fass. The duo also composed the tracks on Randall’s earlier
album Children are People Too and
co-authored the book and accompanying album The Four Seasons
(Summer-Fall-Winter-Spring a Musical Journey for Children Through the Four
Seasons With Eleven Songs and Narration). The
titles of the songs on The Power is You read like the chapter headings of a particularly poor self-help
manual: We’ve Got to Get Back to Basics, Your Power to Dream, There's
Always Room for Change, The Power to Love
and so on. Apparently this nonsense was designed to be used in the classroom,
rather than sold to the general public.

According to the promotional blurb ‘Tony Randall and Lynn
Redgrave campaign for the power of human potential in a new recording by Clarus
Music called The Power Is You. Ten songs in a modern pop style, and appealing
passages by Randall and Redgrave exalt the abilities of the human mind and
form.’ That’s probably about as much as you
need to know, but here are a couple of tracks from the record for your
enjoyment, the opener We’ve Got to Get Back to Basics and the
embarrassingly corny Make People Laugh.

AND NOW, THE NEWS...
-
Good evening. Here's what's happening in the world of outsider music. Our
top story today:
- Florence Foster Jenkins, "The World's Worst Opera Singer," is ...

1 year ago

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